IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Photos and text from wire services

The negative reaction spilled into the finale, with fans on Twitter in particular expressing outrage about the outcome, even if many agreed it was reflective of the way the unjust real world works.

“Good morning to everybody except Bran,” columnist Jemele Hill tweeted Monday, “who despite being a wack archer, sending Hodor and Theon to their deaths and chilling next to a fire while everybody was fighting, got to the king.”

The episode’s leaps from big event to big event to tie up its many plot threads did nothing to quiet criticism that the show that made its name on carefully meandering storytelling had given that up in the final two seasons in favor of attempts to please.

“Like most of Season 8, it felt like a Wikipedia summary more than a full story being told,” Gina Carbone of CinemaBlend wrote.

Critics were genuinely divided. The episode had a 57 percent fresh score among reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes, and even positive reviews acknowledged the impossibility of pulling off an ending that would be broadly satisfying.

“It was everything nobody wanted, but it was still quite a thing: adequately just, narratively symmetrical and sufficiently poignant,” Hank Stuever wrote in the Washington Post.

HBO VIA AP This image released by HBO shows Peter Dinklage in a scene from the final episode of “Game of Thrones,” that aired Sunday.